Free Paris Noir by Jacques Yonnet

valuation expert turned up to visit the premises‚ there was no building.
    It was gone. No sign of it. Vanished into thin air. A wasteland where kids come to play ball and piss in the rubble. An action’s been brought for ‘disappearance of building’. And the newspapers have relaxed reporting restrictions in order to publish the story in exhaustive detail‚ along with huge photos with nothing to see in them‚ featuring a house that’s no longer there. Even the cabaret singers have latched on to it and are having a field day. Meanwhile‚ Bizinque is crowing. He now spends his evenings cutting out and filing the articles that relate his exploit.
    It’s been common knowledge here for the past four months: Bizinque‚ and he alone‚ is the roof-scalper‚ tap-remover‚ gas- pipe scavenger responsible. He then methodically attacked the woodwork and structural frame of the building. He’s never made any secret of it‚ and he’s treated us to a good few drinks. Architect Vergnolle doesn’t think anyone will get on to him about this. So much the better.
The Ill-Fated Knees
    Yesterday Bizinque turned up with a pretty strange fellow I vaguely knew: it was Monsieur Casquette.
    Monsieur Casquette is an undertaker’s assistant. Despite his twenty-four years’ good and faithful service‚ he’s not a funeral director. His military medal‚ his liking for ‘a job well done’ might have won him faster promotion. But he is doubly handicapped: in his‚ let us say‚ average intelligence‚ and his physical appearance. Short and stocky‚ Monsieur Casquette has an incredibly big flat head.
    In the 1920s he had to get his regulation headgear made to measure. This departure from normal practice entailed countless waivers and signatures at different levels. In the Municipal Bulletin the initials of a senior city bureaucrat‚ later minister‚ ratified the administration’s authority‚ delegated by an officialvote‚ to equip our man with a custom-made ‘ casquette ’‚ or peaked cap. The nickname stuck and even he has been known to forget his real name.
    Having always remained an ordinary undertaker’s assistant‚ Monsieur Casquette practises his craft in the 5th arrondissement. He carries out the most loathsome tasks with a natural simplicity. Until recently‚ he was in the habit of playing cards in the evening‚ in Rue Monge‚ with some quiet friends.
    But Monsieur Casquette is by nature quick to take offence. On one occasion‚ one of his fellow card-players cheated by way of a joke. Monsieur Casquette took it very badly: after a rather lively exchange of words‚ he threw down his hand and walked off‚ cursing. ‘Go on‚ make fun of me while you can. I shall bury all three of you!’
    The next day no one gave it another thought. But the undertaker’s three mates‚ all elderly gents‚ passed away in record time‚ and the very distressing task of having to bury them fell to their friend. The regulars at the little café were crass enough to remind him of his words‚ and to suggest perfidiously that he had the ‘evil eye’.
    In fact‚ over the course of last winter‚ he laid to rest so many people of his acquaintance‚ those around him are upset. Everyone now avoids any mention in his presence of the sick or the very weak and old. It’s even whispered that Monsieur Casquette‚ who is actually a very decent man‚ is the unwitting and unwilling instrument of fate‚ and that he’s the vehicle of sinister forces. People are cowardly in the face of the unknown. The undertaker’s oldest friends have ended up shunning him: he’s surrounded by such an atmosphere of wariness‚ of fearful silence‚ that he’s becoming neurotic and has started drinking.
The Old Man Who Appears After Midnight
    The Irish drew up their own map of Old Paris. The one that Dr Garrett showed me. I’d like to do likewise and compile a very specialized map‚ of ‘streets of legend’ – which are notnecessarily the oldest.